As sinkhole grows, so do residents' concerns

The Baltimore Sun

Sherman Offer was taking his daily walk around his Annapolis apartment building one day when the pavement opened and swallowed his leg.

The hole that Offer, 66, encountered 2 1/2 years ago was about the size of a basketball. It has grown into a giant sinkhole, slowly eating nearly 40 parking spaces at the Glenwood high-rise for senior citizens -- an inconvenience for residents, an eyesore for the community and a source of frustration for the federally funded agency that manages the building.

Eric Brown, executive director of the Annapolis Housing Authority, said it would cost nearly $1.9 million to plug up the hole, which is 18 feet wide and 5 feet deep, and it's not likely to happen anytime soon.

He predicted his capital budget from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to maintain 10 complexes in Annapolis next year will be $1.4 million to $1.7 million.

"They [HUD officials] don't have a pool of money sitting around," he said. "We take money from multiple years and try to pool it for a project." Maria Bynum, a HUD spokeswoman, said her agency is working with the Housing Authority "to ensure appropriate steps are taken" to fix the sinkhole.

Brown said the hole was formed by a corroded, bent water pipe that runs under the parking lot: "There's no support there. It's like [the parking lot] is sitting on mush."

Though he said the hole is not threatening the 154-unit building's structural integrity, the agency over the past two years has diverted nearly $850,000 in HUD funds for engineering, patches and a fence. Large white rocks have been piled in and around the crater in an effort to stop it from growing.

Whether that will work is unclear, said Mark Duigon, a geologist at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

"If nothing is done, the sinkhole could get bigger if more sediment and soil leaks into the pipe. Or the pipe could become clogged, which would stop the hole from growing," Duigon said.

The Housing Authority's stopgap measures have become a joke at Glenwood, whose residents are disabled and low-income. They compare the fenced-off sinkhole to a swimming pool without water. Phyliss Gibbs, 62, said the unsightly mess has given her a room with an unwanted view.

"I don't even look out my window, because I look out my window and see that godawful thing," said Gibbs, a Glenwood resident for eight years who sits on the authority's board.

Gibbs said she often yells out warnings to patients with dementia not to get too close to the hole, for fear that they might fall in. Other residents are concerned about what would happen if a fire broke out on the side of the building where the sinkhole is.

Gibbs, who is stepping down from the Housing Authority board July 18, said parking has become such a hot commodity that some residents have fought for a space.

"They put one of those orange cones there, then someone takes the spot, and then when the person who put the cone comes back, all H breaks loose," she said. "That's how bad it's gotten."

Harriet Lee, who has lived at Glenwood for 18 years, said the lack of parking has forced residents to park farther away, putting their cars at risk for break-ins.

"It's hard for me to get across [the street] with this cane," Lee, 77, said.

Community activist Robert H. Eades said that the city's lack of response to residents' concerns is disgraceful.

"We live two blocks from the governor's mansion and the State House," Eades said. "And you tell me the government can't secure the safety of the people it's supposed to protect and serve?"

Mayor Ellen O. Moyer, however, said there is little she can do because Glenwood is not city property. She said that she has no problem with the Public Works Department collaborating with the Housing Authority to fix the problem.

"We can say we can help all we want, but there should be some initiative from the Housing Authority to tell us what it is they want us to do," Moyer said. "The ball is in the Housing Authority's court, and it has been that way since the sinkhole has been there."

For now, residents are biding their time.

"We just put up with it and hope we can find a parking spot and hope your car ain't in a hole when you come out," said Connie Turner.

sharahn.boykin@baltsun.com

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